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Running containers from systemd

When you embed a container in an operating system (OS) image, you can start the container manually in the booted system with the podman run command. However, the container does not start automatically at boot time. To configure a container to start at boot time, you must create a systemd service that starts the container at the right time, in the right way.

Quadlet is a tool that optimally runs Podman containers under systemd. Rather than creating the systemd service manually, use Quadlet to automatically generate the corresponding systemd service unit file at boot time. In this example, create Quadlet files for the sample applications that are available in the AutoSD sample apps repository. If you want to use your own containerized software, see the Podman documentation for more information about creating your own Quadlet configuration files.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. Create Quadlet unit files for the radio-service and engine-service services in your sample application auto-apps:

    radio.container file
    [Unit]
Description=Demo radio service container
Requires=routingmanagerd.socket
After=routingmanagerd.socket
Wants=engine.service

[Container]
Image=localhost/auto-apps
Exec=/usr/bin/radio-service
Volume=/run/vsomeip:/run/vsomeip

[Service]
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
    engine.container file
    [Unit]
Description=Demo engine service container
Requires=routingmanagerd.socket
After=routingmanagerd.socket

[Container]
Image=localhost/auto-apps
Exec=/usr/bin/engine-service
Volume=/run/vsomeip:/run/vsomeip

[Service]
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

  2. Create an automotive image builder manifest named quadlet_radio_engine.aib.yml that contains the following code, which copies the Quadlet unit files to the /etc/containers/systemd/ directory during the OS image build process:

    Manifest configuration to copy Quadlet unit files
    # Example manifest building an image with, pre-installed, a container image
# hosted in a remote container registry

name: quadlet_radio_engine

content:
  repos:
    - id: copr-sample-apps
      baseurl: https://download.copr.fedorainfracloud.org/results/alexl/cs9-sample-images/centos-stream-9-$arch/
  rpms:
    - podman
    - containernetworking-plugins
    - vsomeip3-routingmanager
    - dlt-daemon
    # For testing the image only:
    - openssh-server
    - openssh-clients

  container_images:
    # Get the auto-apps container image from gitlab
    - source: registry.gitlab.com/centos/automotive/sample-images/demo/auto-apps
      tag: latest
      name: localhost/auto-apps

  add_files:
    - path: /etc/containers/systemd/radio.container
      source_path: ../radio.container
    - path: /etc/containers/systemd/engine.container
      source_path: ../engine.container

  # Required for testing the image only:
  systemd:
    enabled_services:
      # Enable ssh daemon
      - sshd.service
      # Enable the dlt daemon
      - dlt

auth:
  # "password"
  root_password: $6$xoLqEUz0cGGJRx01$H3H/bFm0myJPULNMtbSsOFd/2BnHqHkMD92Sfxd.EKM9hXTWSmELG8cf205l6dktomuTcgKGGtGDgtvHVXSWU.
  # Required for testing the image only:
  sshd_config:
    PasswordAuthentication: true
    PermitRootLogin: true

    Note

    The path: option resolves a relative path. In this example, your Quadlet unit files are in the ../ directory.

  3. Run the automotive-image-builder tool to build an OS image:

    $ sudo automotive-image-builder \
    --verbose --container \
    --include=/var/lib/containers/storage/ \
    build \
    --distro autosd9 \
    --target qemu \
    --mode image \
    --build-dir=_build \
    --export qcow2 \
    quadlet_radio_engine.aib.yml \
    quadlet_radio_engine.$arch.qcow2

  4. Verify that the script has created an AutoSD image file named quadlet_radio_engine.<arch>.qcow2 in your present working directory.

    Note

    After you have created the OS image, assuming that you have installed QEMU, you can boot the AutoSD image in a virtual machine by using the automotive-image-runner utility:

  5. Run the image in QEMU using the automotive-image-runner script:

    $ sudo automotive-image-runner quadlet_radio_engine.x86_64.qcow2

    If necessary, substitute the filename of your .qcow2 image file.

  6. After the image has booted in QEMU, log in with the user name root and the password password.

Additional resources

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